MUSIC REVIEW : Blocker, Mehta Sparkle With Youth Symphony

As a full-fledged performing pianist who is also Dean of the School of the Arts, Robert Blocker sets a rare example for UCLA students.

When he appeared Sunday at Royce Hall as soloist with the American Youth Symphony, he fulfilled the living image of role model. Playing Beethoven’s Concerto No. 3, he served notice of a keenly accomplished talent, one that could dispense purling runs at one end and explosive releases at the other.

What’s more, Blocker found the work’s lyric poetry and glittery elegance without any difficulty, taking the measure of the Adagio’s spaciousness with poised languor. Perhaps by the last movement he tired or lost concentration, resulting in a few lapses of synchrony. But the final cadence came off with rip-snorting gusto.

Throughout, Mehli Mehta and a reduced orchestra provided the proper, weighted complement, solid support and even the refined soft playing that one does not necessarily look for in a paraprofessional ensemble.

For that matter, Mehta outdid himself. Opening with “Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche,” he had his charges delineating Strauss’ musically quick-footed mischief with so much character, animation and vigor that the stage vibrated in response. One would think the man is growing younger, not older.

That seemed especially true for Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony. There was no shrinking from the emotional juggernaut, nothing but compulsion in the climactic buildups. The remarkable strings seemed deeply engaged by it, issuing degrees of passion, sorrow and tenderness that can elude mature musicians. No wonder son Zubin, sitting in the audience, looked so intent.